CLOUDS OF WITNESSES A Memorial Day Meditation on Abraham Lincoln, the American Republic, and the Great Dream of Human Possibility James Ishmael Ford 29 May 2016 Pacific Unitarian Church Rancho Palos Verdes, California Jan and I’ve been to this nation’s capital four times. One of the few things we’ve done every time was visit the Lincoln memorial. If we go again, one of the few things we will surely do is visit that shrine. And it is a shrine. I... Read more

Ian Lancaster Fleming was born on this day in 1908. He was a journalist and at one time a British naval intelligence officer who turned his hand to spy novels and created one of the great franchises of the genre. The Bond catalog includes a dozen novels and two volumes of short stories. Two of the Bond novels were published after Fleming’s death showing once again there really are gifts that keep on giving. Pastiches and sequels by other hands... Read more

Vincent Price was born on this day in 1911, which means he would have been one hundred and five today, except, of course, for the small thing of having died in 1993. In my childhood the master of happy horror, a camp monster although neither too camp, nor too gory. A perfect chill for a summer evening. Miss him… Read more

DON’T BE A JERKAnd Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan’s Greatest Zen Master Brad Warner New world Library, Novato, 2016 Don’t Be a Jerk has been sitting at my bedside for a couple of months, and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. This was no surprise. It’s a good book. Now, I’ve written about Brad Warner before. He traveled to Japan to work for the firm that made Godzilla movies, but once there found the independent Soto Zen teacher... Read more

It was 1977. Actually, it was this day in 1977. The Chinese government officially lifted a long standing ban on owning or reading or, well, performing William Shakespeare’s plays and other writings. Apparently it has become the incident that some people like to use as a marker for the end of the disastrous Cultural Revolution. I think a lot about multiculturalism and internationalism and the good and the ill of it. Here in the United States we are struggling with... Read more

Robert Allen Zimmerman was born on this day in 1941. Bob Dylan provided a great deal of the background music of my youth. And, somehow over the years he just kept rolling along with one reinvention after another. But who would have thought three quarters of a century? Read more

You have to love the Episcopalians. They have marked out today as a Feast for Nicolaus Copernicus & Johannes Kepler. The Collect for the day begins, “As the heavens declare your glory, O God, and the firmament shows your handiwork, we bless your Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight you bestowed upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that you would continue to advance our understanding of your cosmos, for our good and for your glory…”... Read more

When Jan & I went to see Money Monster, I was thrilled. I enjoyed the trailers, and am such a big fan of George Clooney and Julia Roberts, who together with Jack O’Connell star in the film. I was about a third of the way through the movie when I realized I was not going to love it. Now don’t get me wrong. Alan DiFiore, Jamie Linden, and Jim Kouf’s script has truly fun moments throughout. The actors are fun... Read more

Ram Mohan Roy (also spelled Rammohan Roy) was born in Radhanagar, Bengal, on this day in 1772. A towering intellect, seeker of justice, and religious reformer, Roy deserves to be more widely known outside of India. He is generally credited as coining the term “Hinduism” as an overall term for the family of religions on the Indian subcontinent. He was an advocate for women’s rights best known as a fierce opponent of sati the practice of “suicide” by widows, called... Read more

Even if some may think so… And with that a tip of the hat to the wondrous Thomas Wright Waller, known to all as “Fats,” born on this day in 1904. Read more